muppetfandomcom-20200223-history
Talk:I Am a Fine Musician
Puppeteers? Do we know who puppeteered the other 3 characters? The way the article reads now, it sounds like Joe, Bob and Loretta did their own puppetry as well as vocals. I think we should make it clearer. -- Ken (talk) 03:24, 28 March 2009 (UTC) :I don't think there's any way to possibly know that. —Scott (talk) 21:59, 5 April 2009 (UTC) ::That's what I figured, so I added the vocal credits to make it a little clearer. -- Ken (talk) 23:04, 5 April 2009 (UTC) Jeff Moss? This page is listed as the music being by Jeff Moss, and in 1969, but I'm not sure either of those is quite right. This song has been performed by others before Sesame Street, one notable example being The Dick Van Dyke Show, so the 1969 date would be out. It may have been titled, "I Am a Fine Musician" as opposed to "Traveling Musician", but the lyrics and melody are the same. As of yet, I haven't found an original writer for the song, some online searching thusfar seems to have this as a traditional song. If I'm mistaken, are there any sources that shows Jeff Moss' involvement? --Dave Splurge 21:04, 5 January 2009 (UTC) :Perhaps he did the musical arrangements, or wrote the bit itself. - Oscarfan 21:24, 5 January 2009 (UTC) ::More likely it was pure guesswork. This entire page was started by a banned user who made a number of odd or unreliable edits. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 21:44, 5 January 2009 (UTC) :::Hey guys, i found the video with the song in the The Dick Van Dyke Show. It that helps? -- KermitFan (talk) 23:40, 27 March 2009 (UTC) ::::Alex added Jeff Moss back in, with the note, "Looks as though Moss is indeed the writer of the song." Is there a source for it really being by him? I always thought it was a pre-existing song. -- Ken (talk) 21:02, February 21, 2010 (UTC) :::::It lists it in ASCAP. Sorry, I should be more aware when I put in writers. Wattamack4 21:12, February 21, 2010 (UTC)Alex ::::::For the record, in this case, Moss definitely did not write it. The ASCAP entry can mean one of two things: either Moss registered the song (which was reworked from a German song, "Ich bin ein Musikante") due to his own arrangements of it somehow being unique enough to qualify (or, since it was basically public domain, nobody had tried to do so for an English version before!) or, and this is also not impossible, it refers to a different song entirely. So it shouldn't be in the song box (at best, it can be a trivia note, "Although the song itself is a folk tune based on the German etc...., ASCAP entry blank shows a registration to Jeff Moss.") This is a fairly unorthodox situation, certainly (my own bet is that Moss managed to register his specific *arrangement*, especially since it's not dissimilar from his own "Everyone Likes Ice Cream" in some ways, but we'll probably never know for sure). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 21:53, February 21, 2010 (UTC) :::::::Oh, whoops. Well, looking at that YouTube video on this same convo, it looks as though this was pretty much a song cover. Wattamack4 22:01, February 21, 2010 (UTC)Alex ::::::::Yeah, a further look through ASCAP and BMI shows a total of seven different registrations under that title, all of which appear to be the same public domain song (two do include "traditional" as well as the registrant's name), so it's just the arrangement which was copyrighted. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 22:04, February 21, 2010 (UTC) ::::::::::That still makes me wonder... IS this a song cover? Just to be sure. Wattamack4 22:14, February 21, 2010 (UTC)Alex ::::::::::Only in the same sense that "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" is a song cover, if you're asking for the song cover page (in which case you'd have to include every public domain, nursery rhyme, and folk song ever used on Sesame Street, which is a lot less interesting than oddities like "Yellow Submarine" or "If I Knew You Were Coming I'd've Baked a Cake"). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 22:22, February 21, 2010 (UTC) :::::::::::Oh, I'd meant song covers as in songs like "Yellow Submarine" and "Spinning Wheel". If this is a kid's song lik Old Macdonald, then nevermind. Wattamack4 22:25, February 21, 2010 (UTC)Alex